ABSTRACT
This chapter asks how a discussion centered on “mobility” might contribute to understanding the changing processes and practices of citizenship in India and broader issues of politics and democracy. The study of politics in general and democracy in India remains constrained by its “sedentary bias” or the assumption that people and their politics are territorially rooted. Such a perspective barely does justice to the study of citizenship in a country crisscrossed by at least 100 million people as internal circular migrants, seeking dignified lives and livelihoods. By studying together mobility and politics from the perspective of labor migrants with homes in Bihar, this chapter seeks to shed light on the ways in which citizenship unfolds in India. First, it explores the political factors that contribute to mobility within India: what do people’s perspectives about the reasons for their migration tell us about political change in India? This discussion provides a useful correction to the perspectives that focus on either economic growth that “pulls” migrants or economic desperation that “pushes” migrants. Rather, the chapter suggests the significance of political change wrought by the narratives of dignity ushered by Lalu Prasad Yadav, Bihar’s charismatic “Backward Caste” leader, in shaping migrants’ aspirations and their own evaluations of their present conditions and future possibilities. However, the chapter also posits these social implications of political change vis-à-vis the social and political exclusion to which migrant workers are subjected. It examines the ways in which labor migrants are continually denied the very “right to have rights” by being deprived of the right to vote as well as their entitlements in an increasingly unequal India, thereby undermining any advantages that might accrue to them from their mobility. A consideration of these fragmented experiences leads me to emphasize the inclusive exclusions underpinning citizenship practices in contemporary India.
